Crumbling and Rebuilding
by CountryGirl914
Summary: "A moment of your time, David?"  Rachel is perceptive, and Dave has nowhere to hide.  A conversation after the Superbowl episode.


**A/N**: So much love for the Superbowl episode. This idea grabbed me and wouldn't let go. I wrote this before the Valentine's Day episode, but I think it still works either way.

**Feedback:** Out of character, or good? Let me know what you think.

* * *

"A moment of your time, David?"

Conversation around him cut off abruptly, and Karofsky looked up from his lunch to see Rachel Berry standing in front of him, twisting the hem of her shirt anxiously. Azimio and the other football players looked on with thinly veiled interest.

"What do you want?"

There had been a strange stalemate in the days since the conference championship game. None of the jocks had stayed in Glee after the required week, and they weren't all suddenly friends, but no slushies had been thrown, either. A truce, of sorts.

"A moment of your time, like I said. I was hoping I could discuss a matter with you in private."

He rolled his eyes and started to reply, a smartass remark on the tip of his tongue, but Rachel cut him off before he could say a word.

"Please." She looked at him, wide eyes nervous but hopeful. "I'd like to think the boy I met last week hasn't disappeared completely."

He broke her gaze to stare at his empty tray, chastised. "Fine, whatever," he muttered, getting up and nodding his goodbye to Azimio before returning his tray and following Rachel out of the cafeteria.

She led him to the choir room—of course—and he slumped into a chair while she stood in front of him, hands clasped like a teacher about to lecture her students.

"I can be very self-absorbed," Rachel said, and Dave blinked, because he hadn't had a clue what she wanted to talk about, but this definitely hadn't even been a possibility.

"I know this is a negative personality trait, but I've never been able to successfully counteract it—and really, self-absorption is almost a requirement for celebrities, so it may not be completely bad. But either way, in order to balance that flaw I try to pay attention to the people around me—picking up on different moods, listening to conversations most would deem irrelevant, asking questions to gather more information. I've found that it's made me very perceptive, although whether that's entirely through my own efforts or if my natural psychic abilities helped a bit I don't know—"

"God damn, Berry, is there a point in there somewhere?"

Rachel twisted her hands together. "Through my own observations, and listening to the boys discuss how you've been behaving lately during football practice and in the locker room, I've noticed that you get angry and upset no matter what names and taunts are thrown at you." She took a deep breath, and looked him in the eye. "But it's the worst when someone insinuates that you're gay."

He was out of his chair in an instant. "I don't know what the fuck you're talking about, and I'm not going to sit here and—"

She was in front of him before he could take a step. "I talked to Kurt, Dave," she said, and he froze. _No_. Not after all he—not after—

He numbly reached for his chair, dropping heavily back into it.

"He didn't tell me anything," Rachel said delicately, "but his non-answer was an answer in itself." Her gaze dropped to her hands for a moment before lifting to him again. "He makes it look so easy, doesn't he? It's one of the things I admire most about him. No matter what happens, what people say or do, he doesn't let it change who he is. I adhere to the same ideal, obviously, but there are still days were I wonder if it would be easier to just…fit in."

"To be normal," he said without thinking, and Rachel's face went sad and sympathetic and understanding and god, he wanted to wipe that expression off her face, because no one pitied David Karofsky. He didn't need it.

(He didn't deserve it.)

"Dave, everyone has their own version of normal. There's nothing wrong with you."

"Yes there is!" He didn't want to be saying this to Berry, to _anyone_, but the floodgates had opened and he couldn't stop. "I'm not normal, I'm a freak! I'm supposed to think about girls, not Kurt Hummel, but nothing I did made it go away, it just got worse, and then I kissed him, and I was so fucking scared that he was going to tell someone that I bullied him even more, and when he left I thought it would fix everything but nothing changed, and now Kurt hates me, the one person who might understand and he's never going to forgive me and it's all my fault, and I don't know how much longer I can keep this up, I need to but I can't, I _hate_ myself, I—"

Rachel stepped closer and put a hand on his shoulder, drawing him forward. Dave leaned in blindly until his face was pressed into her stomach, arms around her waist in a desperate embrace, breathing ragged.

(But he wasn't crying, he never cried, because real men didn't cry.)

Her voice was soft when she spoke again. "I…I still don't approve of your actions, but I do understand." Her small hand was warm against his back, rubbing in slow circles. "And I'm not going to tell anyone. No matter what you've done, I would never out you before you're ready," she said, and relief shuddered through him.

"My dad is a lot like Kurt," she continued, "but my daddy…he's tall and strong and played basketball in college, and when he first told his friends he was gay they thought he was joking, because they just couldn't imagine it. Even now, some people seem to take his sexuality as some kind of betrayal." She swallowed. "I think you should talk to him."

Dave nodded against her abdomen. He was sure he looked like an idiot, clinging to a girl half his size, wrinkling her shirt beyond repair, but he couldn't bring himself to move. Rachel smelled like flowers and reminded him of when he was younger and all problems could be solved by his mom's hugs and soft touch. He didn't want to let go of that yet.

Footsteps sounded in the hallway, getting closer and closer until the door opened, the conversation that was suddenly audible screeching to a halt as the scene inside the choir room came into view.

"The hell is _he_ doing here again? Rachel, are you okay? We can get—"

"I'm fine, Mercedes, Tina. There's no need to find one of the boys or Mr. Schuester. It's okay."

She ran a comforting hand through his hair.

"It's going to be okay."


End file.
